NORTH KOREA SAYS LATEST LAUNCHES TESTED 1ST SPY SATELLITE - North Korea said Monday it fired a test satellite in an important final-stage test for the development of its first spy satellite, a key military capability coveted by its leader Kim Jong Un along with other high-tech weapons systems. The North’s official Korean Central News Agency also released low-resolution, black-and-white photos showing a space view of the South Korean capital and Incheon, a city just west of Seoul, in an apparent attempt to show the North is pushing to acquire a surveillance tool to monitor its rival.   More
(Source: AP News - Dec 19)

ROCKET LAB DELAYS 1ST US LAUNCH DUE TO UNACCEPTABLY HIGH WINDS - Unfavorable upper level winds kept Rocket Lab’s Electron launcher on the ground Sunday night in Virginia. The company will try again Monday to launch its first mission from U.S. soil during a two-hour window opening at 6 p.m. EST (2300 GMT). An Electron rocket will head into orbit with three commercial radio frequency monitoring satellites for HawkEye 360.    More
(Source: Space.com - Dec 19)

NASA POSTPONES SPACEWALK TO SUPPORT SOYUZ INVESTIGATION - NASA is delaying a spacewalk at the International Space Station by two days to support the Russian investigation into a coolant leak on a Soyuz spacecraft docked there. In a statement late Dec. 16, NASA announced that a spacewalk by astronauts Josh Cassada and Frank Rubio, previously scheduled for Dec. 19, would be pushed back to Dec. 21. The spacewalk is the second of two planned to install a new set of solar arrays on the station, following one Dec. 3.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Dec 18)

SPACEX LAUNCHES 2 TELECOM SATELLITES TO ORBIT IN LANDMARK 200TH MISSION - SpaceX carried out its milestone 200th orbital mission on Friday (Dec. 16), sending up a pair of powerful new communications satellites. A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off Friday from Space Launch Complex 40 at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 5:48 p.m. EST (2248 GMT). The first stage, having done its job, came back down and landed safely on a SpaceX drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean just under nine minutes after liftoff. It was the reusable booster's eighth touchdown overall.   More
(Source: Space.com - Dec 17)

TINY METEORITE MAY HAVE CAUSED LEAK FROM SOYUZ CAPSULE - Russian and NASA engineers were assessing a coolant leak on Thursday from a Soyuz crew capsule docked with the International Space Station that could have been caused by a micrometeorite strike. Dramatic NASA TV images showed white particles resembling snowflakes streaming out of the rear of the vessel for hours. The coolant leak forced the last-minute cancellation of a spacewalk by two Russian cosmonauts on Wednesday and could potentially impact a return flight to Earth by three crew members.   More
(Source: voanews.com - Dec 17)

SPACEX LAUNCHES SWOT OCEAN RESEARCH MISSION - SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launched the joint NASA/CNES Surface Water and Ocean Topography satellite mission from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base at 3:46 AM PST (11:46 UTC) on Friday, Dec. 16, after a 24-hour delay to allow teams to complete further data review and analysis after moisture was identified in two of the first stage’s Merlin engines. The first stage performed a Return to Launch Site landing at Landing Zone 4 during the mission.   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Dec 16)

CHINA LAUNCHES YET MORE CLASSIFIED YAOGAN RECONNAISSANCE SATELLITES TO ORBIT - China has added more satellites to its Yaogan remote sensing collection. A Long March 2D rocket lifted off from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern China on Wednesday (Dec. 14) at 1:25 p.m. EST (1815 GMT; or 12:25 a.m. Beijing time on Dec. 15).  The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) declared (opens in new tab) the launch to be a success within an hour of launch, revealing that the payload for the mission was a Yaogan 36 spacecraft.   More
(Source: Space.com - Dec 16)

NASA HAS LOST CONTACT WITH A HURRICANE-WATCHING SATELLITE - NASA is working to reestablish contact with one of the eight spacecraft that make up its Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) constellation, which monitors hurricanes. CYGNSS is the first space-based system to collect frequent measurements of wind speeds from the ocean's surface near the eye of storms such as tropical cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes. However, the CYGNSS team last received data from the satellite designated FM06 at around 4:32 p.m. EST (2132 GMT) on Nov. 26, according to a NASA statement.    More
(Source: Space.com - Dec 16)

NASA PROVIDES UPDATE ON INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION OPERATIONS - On Wednesday, Dec. 14, an external leak was detected from the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft docked to the Rassvet module on the International Space Station. The external radiator cooling loop of the Soyuz is the suspected leak source. The Roscosmos Mission Control team in Moscow postponed Wednesday evening’s planned spacewalk with two cosmonauts to evaluate the situation and data from the Soyuz spacecraft. None of the crew members aboard the space station was in danger, and all conducted normal operations throughout the day.   More
(Source: NASA - Dec 16)

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